Chapter 23 (to page 1149)

It was interesting first of all, to read the story on how China produced both Barbie and Dara (the Muslim version of a doll). It was interesting because they were practically complete opposites and it seemed more united that the Muslim community would want a doll like Dara since even i agree Barbie's lifestyle is a little too crazy if not completely unbelievable and unrealistic. It also caught my attention that they would make Dara an 8 year old instead of a woman solving problems because they still wanted that male dominance, but if it was a child it would be OK to them. The fact that China's connected to both the U.S. and Iran shows how much the economy has globalized. After World War II, the world got connected on a much higher level and that has a lot to do with the effects of creating things like a world bank, the IMF, technology allowing for cheaper transportation, and other such factors. Economic globalization in the 1970's was called neoliberalism. The world was beginning to be viewed as one huge market instead of individual ones. Many companies began to take advantage of poorer countries and their loose regulations and cheap labor and made a lot of money without having to do any more colonizing. The second new form of making money was buying and selling foreign currency. Lastly there was a new form in personal investments of individuals. Companies like Nike have taken advantage of cheap labor and close factories when there gets to be too many regulations and open them elsewhere thousands of miles apart. The problem when countries economies are so tightly linked in this way comes when one fails, the others will most likely fail to a certain degree also. This was recently seen when many countries in 2008 when many businesses failed because they could no longer operate with those they were operating from over seas. The chart describing how long people will live based on the average income of their country was also astonishing. The lower income making below $995 lived only between 58/60 in contrast to the above $12,196 lived between 77/83. This is a big difference and it only gets bigger if you go down the table, such as deaths per year, cars per 1,000 people, even the literacy rate ha a 33% difference.

Chapter 21

This chapter I especially got to learn a lot about since I read it over carefully to be ready to present. This chapter covered the rise and fall of communism. It begins by explaining where communism originated, it had been thought of very long in Russia before actually becoming the USSR. Unfortunately to communist countries, including those today, none have really fulfilled what Karl Marx hoped would happen. Then again, the world was not really ready when countries like China and the USSR jumped the gun. The main reason being? None were industrialized to the lever Marx said needed, they were all mainly agricultural countries. Either way, for a while through violence, communism worked to industrialize to a certain point and did serve to raise the quality of living for many people. It also served to open the idea of women being on the same level as men because it was so rejected before, but to be a true communist country means everyone is equal. The USSR was basically the communist homeland and tried to help many other countries unite to communism through advice, protection, and money. The Russian Revolution took place in 1917 and had three main points, it was because of World War I, there was a shortage of food and work, and lastly it marked the end of the Romanov Dynasty.
There was a big difference in the road to communism for the Chinese because they did not have years of studying and arriving to the communist conclusions like the USSR did. It became a Nationalists versus Communists thing until World War II when the communists were better at uniting the people and creating an army. Communism was good for women in China because of many things like divorce, arranged marriage outlawed, women owning land, and literacy for women. China was lucky because they got a lot of help from the USSR, something to their advantage.
Collectivization of Agriculture also differed in these two countries. For the USSR land reform was easy because it was already being done before the Bolsheviks. The problem was with people actually sharing what they owned. Many people resisted sharing and in many cases killed their livestock out of spite. China set up collective farming much easier but both countries went through famine and starvation. Some 5 million deaths occurred in the USSR and some 20 million in China.
These countries both caused irreversible effects from their industrialization, the worst being the environmental effects that continue to this day, especially seen in China. There was also much rejection of feminist ideas and many women had to suffer from this too to achieve their positions and even then were limited because of peasant rejection to the idea of gender equality.
The Cold War was never expressed in terms of actual countries like the U.S. and the USSR in battle but was seen in many other ways. One was through the Iron Curtain that divided communist East from capitalist West in Europe. The other way was these two countries using countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Cuba to spread what they thought was he better form of government. The worst being the Nuclear Standoff between the U.S. and Cuba and indirectly the USSR. Eventually all these countries decided it would be more detrimental to all of humanity to have a war on that scale. After that, all the countries backed off and eventually Soviet Russia collapsed. Communism can still be seen today in many countries like Cuba, Laos, China, and many more. It will probably always be around but it is doubt-able on whether there well ever be a country like Marx's ideal communist country.

Documents in Chapter 18

As I was reading the documents in chapter 18, they all mostly seemed to be in favor of the Europeans except for document 18.4. This image stood out to me more than the others because it depicted a  realistic image of what was going on to the people being taken over in the Imperialist fashion. Among those involved in the second wave of European conquests there was Britain and France, like in the picture standing over many skeletons and even though they were not in such perfect agreement, they would not have time to fight each other since they were too busy conquering and killing natives of places like Denshway or Morocco. Document 18.5 also stood out to me since at the time, most of Africa was taken over by Europeans, but Ethiopians remained strong together under their emperor. Sadly, the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik also used his power to join the scramble for African land and used brutal force.

Chapter 18

It really got my attention in this reading how the industrial Revolution really impacted trade between Europe and Asia since before the revolution, they had nothing to offer Asia. Europe was now able to trade with all countries and invest money in them. I find it also very interesting on the fact that it seems the Europeans came up with a new way to discriminate. They no longer had slaves, but still considered all else as second-class citizens and the Aryan race to be the supreme ones. What's worse is that they twisted real scientist's words, like Charles Darwin, into making it seem biology was also involved in them being the higher and better race. They were the ones who wanted to make it seem slavery was bad but never got over the idea of superiority and it only got worse with Nationalism. They felt pride in what their countries were doing by having colonies in different parts of the world.

It's interesting to see that before, in the first wave of European conquests, the Spanish and Portuguese had a big role but in the second only minor ones. It was now Germany, Italy, Belgium, the U.S., and Japan. It's very unfair hat the Europeans could not be stopped since they had machine guns. India seemed to had it over too easily to the British since they had already been trading through the British East India Company.

Lower Class of the Industrial Revolution

It is very sad to think of all the suffering the lower class had to go through in England during the Industrial Revolution when there was so much money to go around. Reading through Elizabeth Bentley and her experience, what stood out to me was the obviously horrid working conditions and he fact that she had been working at that mill since the age of 6. She had to sometimes work from 13 to 16 hours a day depending on how busy they were. She got punished by the overseer for being late by being "strapped" and if she was late, she got taken away some of the money she could possibly earn, which was not much. Even if she was not late and worked especially hard, there would be no point since during her measly 40 minutes of break time she could not eat and her food was taken from her and given to pigs to feed. There was no reimbursement from that stolen food from the overseer. The document called Thrift mentioned that even parliament didn't try to help these people. Where was the ideas of Enlightenment now? In Thrift, it mentions women were practically treated as animals. It was very unfair that in those times so one tried much to do anything about the unfair treatment of women and children especially. Thank God for the countries finally having laws and regulations for their workers and how sad that this is still going on today in other parts of the world.

Martin Luther

After reading the document in Strayer's book about what Martin Luther said in his published work, Table Talks, I can understand why Protestants really needed to branch out. I almost agree with most of the things he ha to say about the Catholic Church at that time. The pope only cared really about having power, as did bishops and meanwhile, common people were dying of hunger. I can see why he would allow Protestants to marry. The pope today even has been heard saying it would make for a better Church, but then again, our pope today has many radical ideas. Now, don't get me wrong, I think it would be wonderful if priests everywhere were allowed to marry and raise families, I'm just saying it's very radical for the Catholic Church. Martin Luther took verses in the bible very seriously and said, "Christ with one sentence confutes all their arguments: God created them man and female... Now eating, drinking, marrying, etc, are all of God's making, therefore they are good..." (755). This only makes me think more that women should have a higher role in the church and perhaps all priests of all religions should be allowed that marrying option. I definitely do not agree on his views that women can learn but only serve their families though. Even today women are not allowed an active role in the Catholic Church and I think that reflects a lot on how little society has changed in its respect to women.

Sweet Nexus, Putting a Not So Sweet Price on a Human Being

 

So, I really liked reading Sweet Nexus: Sugar and the Origins of the Modern World. What really made me think a lot was the advertisement for sugar that the East India Co. had  made to sell sugar for the British. As a person with a major in business, it makes perfect sense for the East India Co. to try and use that angle for marketing. It made me happy though that they saw a need to do that. I was glad that British women were no longer buying sugar from places that used slaves because people were starting to care about the products they bought. The little side note on the bottom stated, "A family that uses 5lb. of Sugar per week , will, by using East India instead of West India, for 21 months, prevent the slavery, or murder of one fellow creature. Eight such families in 19.5 years, will prevent the slavery, or murder of 100!". This really made me think that, after reading all the other articles, that it might even be a bigger number. It made me think that it was even worse though that they could put a value on a persons life. Compare the life of a human being to that of sugar. This really did get the ball rolling though on abolitionist movement thankfully.

YAY! All Done!